Reflections on Death as Character, Event and Medium in Film and in Life : A Practice-Based Research on Making a Short Film

Through the making of a short film, entitled The First Job, this thesis attempts to investigate the issue of death and dying in the context of other films and writings. The way in which Western society has portrayed Death as a character and death as a fact is a reflection of how this issue is understood. If film narratives have changed their approach to the Grim Reaper, does it have any barring on this usually unmentionable taboo? Filmmakers such as Ingmar Bergman and authors such as Susan Sontag have taken the questions some steps further. It is the intention of this paper to try, through reflective practice, to follow these steps.